Report: Amnesty for Illegal Aliens Would Cost Taxpayers at Least $3.6 Trillion Over 75 Years

A report published by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) indicates that granting illegal aliens in the U.S. amnesty would cost American taxpayers at least $3.6 trillion over the course of the next 75 years.

The report, titled, “The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration,” finds that the net fiscal cost—benefits claimed by roughly ten million illegal alien adults minus taxes they would pay—amounts to $1.29 trillion, if the money was raised immediately with a massive tax increase that would cost each U.S. household $15,000.

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But senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation Robert Rector warns, the U.S. government would not levy a $1.29 trillion tax on taxpayers right away. Instead, it would move forward without funding and essentially kick the can down the road.

Rector estimates that over time, amnesty for approximately ten million illegal alien adults over the course of 75 years would total roughly $3.6 trillion, in 2012 dollars. Rector writes:

Advocates of amnesty have suggested that low-skill immigrants generate large-scale positive economic results that benefit U.S. workers. The NAS reports finds no evidence of such effects. On the other hand, the report clearly shows that the continuing inflow of low-skill immigrants into the U.S. creates large fiscal burdens for taxpayers in the present and the future. Moreover, granting amnesty is likely to generate even greater flows of illegal immigrants into the United States, adding even more costs.

Adult illegal aliens are six times more likely not to have even a high school diploma, compared to the U.S.-born.

Another NAS report found that current immigration into the U.S. takes roughly $493 billion in wages from American workers and established immigrants and gives it to major employers and newly-arrived foreign workers.

Every piece of “comprehensive immigration reform” legislation considered in Congress since 2006 would have eventually given every single illegal alien amnesty recipient Social Security and Medicare benefits Americans paid for. Rector also notes that the illegals would quickly gain access to the entire U.S. welfare system.